Summer the best time for an asthma action plan

Enjoying the long summer days outside might be keeping asthmatic students out of the hospital but experts say now is the time to plan for returning to school.

Asthma program coordinator, Peggy Gaddy, with the state health department said summer is when parents should be talking with doctors and preparing for the school year.

"We think this is a good time to go back when your child is feeling well, sit down and discuss with your physician the medications that the child is on and come up with what is called an asthma action plan for the child," she said.

Gaddy said the action plan needs to include what medications the child is taking and what signs indicate an asthma attack so the school knows how to care for the child.

"The other thing is that with asthma you don’t just have to wheeze to be having trouble with your asthma," she said. "It can be the cough, the incessant cough that you get with it and these children especially have this cough at night and so it keeps them awake and it effects their ability to perform well in school."

Gaddy says proper planning now can keep asthmatic children in class in the fall.